jueves, febrero 14, 2013

Lynas, again

ESSAY OF THE WEEK

Mark Lynas: GMO Convert? Or Hired Gun?

On January 3, Mark Lynas, British author of several books on global warming includingSix Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, told a sold-out audience at the Oxford Farming Conference in Oxford, England, that he was sorry. Sorry that he’d maligned genetically modified (GM) crops. Sorry that he’d “helped to start the anti-GM movement.” Sorry that he’d “demonized” a technology that could be used to “benefit the environment.”

That’s right. An expert on global warming was now telling the world that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM crops, with their billions of tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, with their large-scale monocultures that leave food crops vulnerable to drought, pests and disease, are good for the environment.

How did a journalist, well-known for his work on climate change, become an impassioned advocate and spokesperson for the biotech industry? And an instant media star in the process? Is Lynas just a slick self-promoter willing to say anything for attention? Or did he sell his soul to the biotech industry?